Rescue of Completed Archaeological Projects (RECAP), funded by English Heritage and running between 2003 and 2009, archived a number of completed projects from the last decade, some of international importance, which have created significant amounts of digital information. In many cases with older projects, the adoption of computer recording may only have been possible during the later analysis stages of these projects. If such data sets survive in a readily useable condition they could still constitute a major digital resource for online dissemination if the necessary work can be identified and carried out to make them available.
Because of the time-lapse since completion of these projects, it is not possible to decide on which projects might have appropriate digital material without first carrying out a degree of digital archive assessment and auditing. The RECAP project therefore proposed that a relatively speedy audit process be carried out to assess the state of existing archives from a list of projects provided by Archaeology Commissions at English Heritage.
Aims and Objectives
The overall aim of this project is to gather a sufficiently informed assessment of the existing material in order to judge the potential for archive deposition or dissemination of any digital material. In particular the project should achieve the following objectives:
- To identify and question key personnel with regard to the existence and location of digital data from each completed project.
- To locate, and as far as possible quantify any existing digital data.
- To identify the format and assess the condition of any digital data for each project.
- To make a broad assessment of the potential for archiving and dissemination, for existing data from each project.
- To assess the broad scale of work required to create a viable digital archive (including identifying any essential further digitisation work).
- To identify any other plans for dissemination and archiving of project results or references to existing project publications and archives.
- To complete a summary audit/assessment report to English Heritage setting out the current nature, condition and the potential for digital archiving and dissemination for each project. The report to include, where appropriate, cost estimates for deposition and dissemination by ADS.
Results
Archives were successfully deposited from five of the eight identified projects and are now available on the RECAP project archive page.
